My 1st raid starts tommorrow. Any tips or strategies?

So Tomorrow's is going to be my 1st normal 10m raid. Me and my guild will be tackling Stone guard, Feng, and Gara.

I'll be raiding as destruction spec as agreed and I think I have most of my gear covered except for one or 2 enchants. Im a little nervous. We have all had our first raid experiences. However I wanna go into it as prepared as possible. Any tips for a destro lock on the following bosses? Any strategies? Youtube and sites like Icyveins only go into raids generally. It would be nice to get some strategies from actual warlocks. How does my gear reforge look to you? What about food, flasks, and any other norm/heroic necessities?

For food/flask/potions, see if your guild provides it. If it doesn't, get yourself at least 4 flasks if you're not alchemist, 2-3 if you are. At least 2 stacks of INT potions, preferably more. Finally, at least one stack of food, again INT.

As Luna said, surviving is your #1 priority, but i guess you kinda know how to keep yourself alive from LFR. Don't hesitate to ask questions if you're unsure about a fight. People will prefer answering a quick question than wiping due to you not doing what you are supposed to.

Now, for warlocks, make sure you put down health stones every pull, and remind your raiders to take them. Use them as required. Also, people will kind of assume you'll be ready early so you can summon from inside, depending on your group.

Originally Posted by Sahugani

PS: If you detect ANY irony or sarcasm in this post AT ALL, please report it to [email protected]

Test your vent, microphone, and mods before the raid. You don't want to be fixing things as the raid starts. Prep your drinks and snacks beforehand as well. Go to the bathroom before the raid (it's kinda like a car trip, you don't really want to have to stop in the middle).

Show up at least 15 minutes early, and hang out near the instance entrance. Bring twice as much food and flasks as you think is necessary. Follow your raid leaders' instructions. Put down healthstones as soon as the raid assembles.

Don't try to be clever. Follow your assignments, even if they contradict what you've read on the internet. Move out of the fire first, then cast.

You don't really want to aim for amazing at first. You want to be steady and reliable, the raider that your leaders can count on.

If you want to get a good start, concentrate on not dying. When you learn what you need to avoid THEN you can worry about your damage and output.

This.

First and foremost, know the fights inside and out. Not only should you know what strat your guild will be using, but you should know all the abilities of the bosses so that you can help come up with strat tweaks/adjustments, or even a whole new strat, should the one you go in with not work for your team. Know the fights well enough to explain them to your team in a concise manner. Knowing the fights reduces their mystique and will help you overcome any first-raid jitters. Read about the fights on Icy Veins and watch the Fatboss vids on Youtube.

You seem like you're taking it pretty seriously, which is good -- shows you're group-oriented.

I'd try to get those 2 enchants taken care of. Try to bring some feasts with you beyond your personal food and more flasks and potions than you'll need, so you can help out anyone who maybe forgot something. This will help reduce downtime. More time spent on bosses = more chance at killing bosses.

If you're a little nervous I wouldn't worry about getting fancy with maximizing your deeps. That will come with time. First and foremost, stay alive, and keep it basic. If your entire team is approximately at your gear level, the bosses you're shooting for should definitely be within reach without having to pull out all the stops, and your biggest contributions will be minimizing damage taken from avoidable sources. Trying to do too much at once for your first raid could overwhelm you. Hopefully not, but it'd be better to ramp it up than have to tone it down. Once you've got the general raid basics down you can focus on higher-level dps ... just in general for your class/spec and then for each individual encounter.

Keep a positive attitude, don't let your team get frustrated by setbacks (and if you must offer criticism, keep it constructive, and maybe consider whispering your thoughts to the raidleader first).

And most importantly, remember you're here to have fun. Good luck, and let us know how it goes !

This game is easy in an essence, I put game in bold because people forget that this is a game sometimes (myself included) with how diverse and time consuming it can be, especially the first time doing things such as joining a new guild (leaving people behind) or experiencing raiding. The biggest tip of all I can give you is to never get frustrated and have fun, keeping in mind in the grand scheme of things that you can only give it your all. Like the people above me said, your main priority is going to be not dying, second after that is positioning and watching where you stand while also watching your surroundings (Stoneguards, before you sit and get ready to pew pew the bosses, watch for whats bellow your feet at all times or if you get chained to someone else)...then comes managing your damage/dps, in theory there's always a spec that does the 'best' damage, but it ultimately comes down to what you enjoy playing the most (If affliction does more then destruction but you suck at managing dots, you're going to out perform affliction as destruction if you're more comfortable, plain and simple). Destruction is a fun spec for sure, especially for your first raid since there's not so much you have to watch out for rotation wise and you can focus on surviving more.

Things I've noticed with your armory:
-- You're 41% over hit cap, those extra stats can be put towards a better stat since right now 41% is being wasted.
-- You're gemmed for Rigid in your chest's blue gem slot when you should gem for Veiled (Int + Hit), which you have done correctly already in your gloves though.
-- Definitely get those pieces enchanted asap, I'm sure gold is tight since you are new to raiding but doing this at least shows you are giving dedication to the group you're going to be raiding with and if you'd expect it from them..should do it yourself.
-- Don't be afraid to use your KJC cooldown for your first time! When moving you're slowed by 30% after you get 2 stacks, this can cause avoiding new mechanics to be more challenging then they already are.

You seem to have the stat priority in order for destruction seeing as you're playing with grimoire of sacrifice.

Others have pretty much summed up what to do, and what to worry about. I just wanted to say don't get upset/annoyed with a couple deaths. I'm not sure if it is just your first raid or the guilds entirely, but these bosses will take a little practice to get use to. Going Dogs, Feng, and Gara'jal in one night and on your first time raiding as a guild, is a steep order to fill. If nothing does, you all have gotten a taste of a boss, and invaluable experience. If something does die, enjoy the feeling of progression while not getting discouraged about other bosses. Overall, I would say just make sure to have fun.

lucky for you, the first 2 bosses are largely reliant on tanks, so by the time you get to the bosses where you will have some amount of responsibility you will be into the swing of raiding but yeah as others have said learn to stay alive on the fight then learn how to dps on it. better to do 50k for the whole fight than 60k for half of it

Any tips for a destro lock on the following bosses? Any strategies? Youtube and sites like Icyveins only go into raids generally. It would be nice to get some strategies from actual warlocks.

That's the most important thing.

You can be the best at executing your warlock rotation / priorities in the world, but if you fuck up on mechanics and kill either yourself, or worse, the rest of the raid - you can get the hell outa my raid. Boss tactics are the greatest priority - it doesn't matter if icyveins only covers them generally, that's what you need to know. Once you know them, THEN you can focus on squeezing the best out of your class.

Other than that, know your class abilities inside out.

Don't be sacrificing a Voidwalker on Dogs etc if cobalt is up - your imps dispel is more useful there, likewise - don't be sacrificing an imp on Feng, when your VW's last stand is more useful. Know where and when to use portals etc.

Knowing your rotation is great, knowing your complete toolkit is easy to overlook - but it's what often makes the difference between good and great - proper use of the warlock toolkit can result in things like ZERO time spent running around in the silencing FOG doing zero damage on Vizier for example. Knowing the boss tactics is an absolute must, since without that - everything else you know is completely useless.

After that, just play your spec a fair bit. Getting a "feel" for procs, dot durations and your rotation in general means you spend less time needing to pay attention to your addons, which means more time spent paying attention to the encounter.

Be aware of what's going on on he ground too, not just fire, but also make sure you don't just completely ignore things like AOE healing on the floor - don't stand 2 yards out of a big green circle.

Hit only to 15%, up your professions, download the addon GTFO and DBM.

Ooooh good call. GTFO is a freaking amazing addon. There are many abilities in the game where the visual effect and the actual effect do not line up. I've seen some where people moved more than they had to (wasting dps uptime) because it looks like you're in it but you're really out, and some where they didn't move enough (taking avoidable damage) because it looks like you're out but you're still in it.

Plus, having the aural cues helps relieve any possible visual overload from watching the encounter area and your dps addons. DBM and GTFO are the only two addons I personally consider mandatory.

Stone Guard- Jasper Chains pose the greatest threat to a new group. Stick to your chain partner until Jasper Guardian begins to petrify, then move apart to break your chain debuff at 15 stacks. As mentioned earlier, if your group has Cobalt Guardian, utilize your imp sacrifice to act as a personal dispel for minesweeping. This is best done during the Cobalt petrification, but you may also use appropriate cooldowns to mitigate damage if you must clear mines in an emergency.

Feng - Don't drop the flames on top of other players, and place them so they will not be drawn through other players. Stand 10-12 yards from Feng during Arcane Velocity if you get Resonance to minimize damage taken.

Gara'jal - DPS lots. The fight is intended to send 1 healer and 2 DPS into each spirit totem; communication is vital to ensure your DPS destroy the totem only when their healer is inside the circle.

Destruction can exploit Mannoroth's Fury with Fire & Brimstone in the spirit realm.

keldion and the others are spot on, stack up on consumables etc. and do what keldion says and you should be fine, dont stand in frost mines and purple stuff on stone guards either.

on feng, ranged(you) should stack on the middle of the area. feng has 3 phases, phase 1 depends a great deal on tanks preventing epicenter using shroud of reversal, in case the epicenter isnt stopped by the tank, the best course of action is prolly to regen mana as you prolly wont hit with your spells. in phase 2, ppl will get wildfire sparks. when they get wildfire sparks, you need to move out of the raid, so that the fire it spawns doesnt spawn in the middle of where your raid is stacking, other than that phase 2 is just dps as hard as you can, KLC will prolly help you a lot on this fight. phase 3 is pretty staight forward. feng will use 2 abilities: arcane velocity and arcane resonance. on arcane velocity you stack up on boss as this deals dmg to the whole raid and deals more dmg depending on how far away you are from feng, and if you're close to feng he will deal little dmg. on arcane resonance you will get a debuff that deals dmg to you and every1 within 6 yards, so as with wildfire sparks, you need to move away from the raid, when its done, move back.

on gara'jal, its all about doing dps on gara and getting as many totems down when you're in the spirit realm, the fewer totems, the easier the healers will have it, usually 2 dps and a healer will go in, but it is doable with 1 dps and 1 healer but always wait for your healer, he/she is very important, but you wont be able to get into the spirit realm when you get voodoo dolls, so if you are scheduled to go into the spirit realm and you have voodoo dolls, remember to let ppl know just in case, altho this can mostly be found out visually as the debuff will show up on your raidframes.

and just to be clear, destro is prolly not the best option to start raiding since its fairly subpar compared to demo and afflic, but try it out and see how you compare to the other classes, if its too low then change spec, really need to exploit all your abilities as destro to do well and it is prolly more gear dependent but at the end of the day, you'll prolly do better as destro if it is the spec you prefer, so stick with that.

Know the initial strat your guild is going to use, fatboss/icy/or whatever else, go into lfr and do that strat, most of the mechanics are still there even if people ignore them. As dps I've always felt progression is a two step process, first is staying alive/minimizing damage taken(a dead dps is no dps) and the next is figuring out tricks to do as much dps as possible. I can't help you with destro tricks, never raided as it.

Dogs- if it is jasper chains stick to your partner like crazy. Hopefully you don't get the adhd kid in a candy store. Otherwise don't stand in stuff
Feng- I put my portal down 1/2 to the center. During fire phase I use it to quickly get out of group to drop fire and in arcane phase I use it to quickly unstack in case I get the debuff. If your raid lead wants the fire in a specific spot claim that area for 3rd phase as well.
Gara'jal- Rotate cds if you get dolled. Keep your ears peeled in case you are called to go down. Hit your freaking button so you don't die, dbm counts down as the debuff wears off so no excuse to die. Don't bother trying to get that last cast off until you are more comfortable.